Part Six: Chapter 4

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Varenka, with her white kerchief on her black hair, surroundedby the children, gaily and good-humoredly looking after them, andat the same time visibly excited at the possibility of receivinga declaration from the man she cared for, was very attractive.Sergey Ivanovitch walked beside her, and never left off admiringher. Looking at her, he recalled all the delightful things hehad heard from her lips, all the good he knew about her, andbecame more and more conscious that the feeling he had for herwas something special that he had felt long, long ago, and onlyonce, in his early youth. The feeling of happiness in being nearher continually grew, and at last reached such a point that, ashe put a huge, slender-stalked agaric fungus in her basket, helooked straight into her face, and noticing the flush of glad andalarmed excitement that overspread her face, he was confusedhimself, and smiled to her in silence a smile that said too much.

　　"If so," he said to himself, "I ought to think it over and makeup my mind, and not give way like a boy to the impulse of amoment."

　　"I'm going to pick by myself apart from all the rest, or else myefforts will make no show," he said, and he left the edge of theforest where they were walking on low silky grass between oldbirch trees standing far apart, and went more into the heart ofthe wood, where between the white birch trunks there were graytrunks of aspen and dark bushes of hazel. Walking some fortypaces away, Sergey Ivanovitch, knowing he was out of sight, stoodstill behind a bushy spindle-tree in full flower with its rosyred catkins. It was perfectly still all round him. Onlyoverhead in the birches under which he stood, the flies, like aswarm of bees, buzzed unceasingly, and from time to time thechildren's voices were floated across to him. All at once heheard, not far from the edge of the wood, the sound of Varenka'scontralto voice, calling Grisha, and a smile of delight passedover Sergey Ivanovitch's face. Conscious of this smile, he shookhis head disapprovingly at his own condition, and taking out acigar, he began lighting it. For a long while he could not get amatch to light against the trunk of a birch tree. The softscales of the white bark rubbed off the phosphorus, and the lightwent out. At last one of the matches burned, and the fragrantcigar smoke, hovering uncertainly in flat, wide coils, stretchedaway forwards and upwards over a bush under the overhangingbranches of a birch tree. Watching the streak of smoke, SergeyIvanovitch walked gently on, deliberating on his position.

　　"Why not?" he thought. "If it were only a passing fancy or apassion, if it were only this attraction--this mutual attraction(I can call it a mutual attraction), but if I felt that it was incontradiction with the whole bent of my life--if I felt that ingiving way to this attraction I should be false to my vocationand my duty...but it's not so. The only thing I can sayagainst it is that, when I lost Marie, I said to myself that Iwould remain faithful to her memory. That's the only thing I cansay against my feeling.... That's a great thing," SergeyIvanovitch said to himself, feeling at the same time that thisconsideration had not the slightest importance for himpersonally, but would only perhaps detract from his romanticcharacter in the eyes of others. "But apart from that, howevermuch I searched, I should never find anything to say against myfeeling. If I were choosing by considerations of suitabilityalone, I could not have found anything better."

　　However many women and girls he thought of whom he knew, he couldnot think of a girl who united to such a degree all, positivelyall, the qualities he would wish to see in his wife. She had allthe charm and freshness of youth, but she was not a child; and ifshe loved him, she loved him consciously as a woman ought tolove; that was one thing. Another point: she was not only farfrom being worldly, but had an unmistakable distaste for worldlysociety, and at the same time she knew the world, and had all theways of a woman of the best society, which were absolutelyessential to Sergey Ivanovitch's conception of the woman who wasto share his life. Thirdly: she was religious, and not like achild, unconsciously religious and good, as Kitty, for example,was, but her life was founded on religious principles. Even intrifling matters, Sergey Ivanovitch found in her all that hewanted in his wife: she was poor and alone in the world, so shewould not bring with her a mass of relations and their influenceinto her husband's house, as he saw now in Kitty's case. Shewould owe everything to her husband, which was what he had alwaysdesired too for his future family life. And this girl, whounited all these qualities, loved him. He was a modest man, buthe could not help seeing it. And he loved her. There was oneconsideration against it--his age. But he came of a long-livedfamily, he had not a single gray hair, no one would have takenhim for forty, and he remembered Varenka's saying that it wasonly in Russia that men of fifty thought themselves old, and thatin France a man of fifty considers himself dans la force del'age, while a man of forty is un jeune homme. But what did themere reckoning of years matter when he felt as young in heart ashe had been twenty years ago? Was it not youth to feel as hefelt now, when coming from the other side to the edge of the woodhe saw in the glowing light of the slanting sunbeams the graciousfigure of Varenka in her yellow gown with her basket, walkinglightly by the trunk of an old birch tree, and when thisimpression of the sight of Varenka blended so harmoniously withthe beauty of the view, of the yellow oatfield lying bathed inthe slanting sunshine, and beyond it the distant ancient forestflecked with yellow and melting into the blue of the distance?His heart throbbed joyously. A softened feeling came over him.He felt that he had made up his mind. Varenka, who had justcrouched down to pick a mushroom, rose with a supple movement andlooked round. Flinging away the cigar, Sergey Ivanovitchadvanced with resolute steps towards her.